give you my full forgiveness for that shot you fired at me. It was
the result of a strange mistake, but had I acted as you believed, I
should have well deserved the death you intended for me."

"Confound it, Mallett, there seems no end of mischief from your
visit here. In the first place, you were nearly knocked over
yourself, and now there is this man lying insensible. So for
goodness' sake get off to your room again, and lie down and keep
yourself quiet for the rest of the day. I shall have you
demoralising the whole ward if you stay here."

Captain Mallett walked back with a much feebler and less steady
step than that with which he had entered the hospital. He had some
doubts whether the man who had made this strange accusation and had
so nearly taken his life was really sane, and whether he had not
altogether imagined the conversation which he declared he had heard
in the garden. He remembered now the sudden way in which George
Lechmere had turned round and gone away when he saw him saying
goodbye to Martha, and how she had shrugged her shoulders in
contempt.

The man must either be mad, or of a frightfully jealous
disposition, to conjure up harm out of such an incident: and one
who would do so might well, when his brain was on fire, conjure up
this imaginary conversation. Still, he might have heard some man
talking to her. From what Sir John had said, she did leave the
house and go into the garden about that hour, and she certainly
never returned.

He remembered all about George Lechmere now. He had the reputation